"She was the first official girl sleuth, and the rest came tumbling after," wrote novelist Bobbie Ann Mason in her book "The Girl Sleuth." "We've come a long way from Nancy Drew, but there are many adult women walking around with images of her — in a neat blue suit, driving her blue roadster — tucked down close to their hearts."

"She's capable, brave, generous, and sort of relentless in her desire to succeed and do what's right," Frank said. "As the father of two young girls, Nancy is a lot of everything that I hope they would feel they could be."

The Stratemeyer Syndicate, led by publisher and book packager Edward Stratemeyer, published the Nancy Drew novels under the collective pseudonym of Carolyn Keene. Stratemeyer and his daughters Harriet and Edna supplied simple outlines for many of the early novels for freelance writers to work from. Frank agrees with many commentators that Mildred Wirt Benson, who wrote the first five and many of the other original Nancy Drew novels, truly defined her spunky character.

Frank said he and Maclay "fell in love with the original voice, in most of those books by Mildred Wirt Benson — the spunkier, more fearless (Nancy Drew). When they revised Nancy in the late '50s and '60s, she become a little more tame and a little older — we wanted her to be the 16-year-old; that makes more sense for us."

So First Stage's production is set in the 1930s, with costumes and props to reflect the time period. Nancy will wear a blue coat based on the earliest illustrations. Ensemble actors who fill in the background of scenes will wear muted '30s gray.

Maclay and Frank have also kept as much of the original dialogue from the novels as possible. However, in a touch that likely will prove highly entertaining to the audience, they've given Nancy a number of moments where she addresses the audience directly and offers a comment or moment of wisdom, such as this:

"The secret to solving a mystery is often found, in fact a surprising amount of times, down a secret passageway or behind a secret panel."

Or this:

"Boys like it when you pay attention to them. Which is fine. As long as they don't expect you to rearrange your sleuthing schedule to accommodate their social calendar."

"We're really conscious of making sure that everything we do is fun and making the story more vivid and entertaining, but that we kept that respect for Nancy Drew," Frank said.

So how did Frank cast the role of Nancy, who's practically an archetype, almost never leaves the stage and has a whole lotta dialogue to speak?

He said First Stage looked for "a boldness, a brightness and a deep sense of honesty and heart, young women with a good sense of who they are, and who are comfortable with who they are on stage and off. Both Madison (Penzkover) and Amanda (Desimowich, who share the role) are those kinds of girls."

(Aside to Madison and Amanda: You need to ask Jeff Frank to write your college letters of recommendation RIGHT NOW.)

Knowing the attention span of his audience — "Nancy Drew and Her Biggest Case Ever" is recommended for people 7 years and older — Frank normally tries to keep transitions between scenes in a First Stage production as short as possible.

That's proved tricky in this show, with its many action scenes and costume and prop changes. But Frank has a found surprisingly ally in Willy Porter's musical score, which he likens to an additional character.

"We can afford to linger (in the transitions) a little bit," Frank said. Porter, a prominent singer-songwriter and touring performer, met Frank the parental way — through a carpool when their daughters were in the same show.

About Jim Higgins

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